1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of information handling system networking, and more particularly to a system and method for information handling system data center bridging features with defined application environments.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Information handling system usefulness has grown as networking capabilities have improved and allowed ready remote access to information. One example of improved networking capabilities is the faster speeds employed by more recent Ethernet networks compared with early versions of Ethernet, which operated at 10 Mbs or less. By comparison, the information technology industry is now moving towards 10 GE Ethernet. With these increased Ethernet networking speeds, interest has arisen to develop bandwidth sharing among multiple traffic types across an Ethernet link. A proposed IEEE 802.1 standard called Data Center Bridging (DCB) offers convergence of multiple types of traffic on Ethernet, such as by enabling local area network (LAN), storage area network (SAN) and IPC traffic to share bandwidth of a 10 G link with improved congestion management and quality of service. For example the DCB standard allows a network administrator to configure parameters for each type of traffic sent across a network, such as parameters for priority, bandwidth, flow control and end-to-end congestion management. Configuration of parameters is managed by a standardized protocol known as the DCB Capability Exchange Protocol (DCBX). The DCBX standard enables an administrator to centrally configure parameters on a network switch. Network devices, such as servers, switches and storage, exchange parameters input at a switch using DCBX Type-Length-Value Pairs (TLVs) and end stations, such as client information handling systems, inherit configurations from the switch.
One disadvantage of the DCB specification is that TLVs are designed for Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and iSCSI traffic by allowing administrators to centrally associate DCB parameters with Ethertype and TCP socket number. The DCB specification does not currently allow centralized configuration of other types of traffic. However, a variety of applications run on client information handling systems by communicating information over networks. One example is the use of virtual machines, which use a hypervisor during VMotion migration of virtual machines between server and client information handling systems. Another example is e-mail traffic and database traffic, which often include varying degrees of importance. Another example is management applications that manage various aspects of a network and typically have a high priority relative to other applications. Often, DCB features remain unavailable for a particular application unless the application uses an industry standard UDP or TCP socket number.